Why Chelsea Manning Could Be The Greatest Hero Of The 21st Century
In Brief
- The Facts:Chelsea Manning was released from prison on March 12th, to very little fanfare.
- Reflect On:When we actually are able to fathom what Chelsea Manning has been willing to go through as a result of her unwavering principles, can we help but consider her one of the great heroes of modern times?
When
a federal judge ordered the release of Chelsea Manning from prison on
March 12th, the news
was met with relatively little fanfare. There was a
kind of muted, matter-of-factness about it in the mainstream press,
with much of the print devoted to procedural aspects of the release, or
the fact that Ms. Manning allegedly tried to kill herself the day
before, based on her lawyers’ testimony.
The most important discussion, which
seems to only be taking place in the remotest fringes of cyberspace, is
acknowledging the incredible courage, conscience, and resilience that
Chelsea Manning has displayed during the entire harrowing ordeal. Her
principled efforts, as we will discuss further, serve as a model for the
rest of us who are truly seeking to liberate the planet from tyranny
and enslavement.
What Manning Actually Did
In 2010, then-Pfc. Bradley Manning,
a 22-year old Army intelligence analyst in Iraq, sent hundreds of
thousands of classified files to WikiLeaks. These files consisted of
documents such as State Department cables, and videos, among them the
famous “Collateral Murder” video which showed the US army killing a dozen unarmed civilians, including two Reuters employees.
In an online chat attributed to Manning, she wrote the following regarding her decision to release the files:
If you had free reign over classified networks… and you saw incredible things, awful things… things that belonged in the public domain, and not on some server stored in a dark room in Washington DC… what would you do?God knows what happens now. Hopefully worldwide discussion, debates, and reforms… I want people to see the truth… because without information, you cannot make informed decisions as a public. (source)advertisement - learn more
Manning witnessed multiple actions
that were inhumane on the part of her own military and government.
Manning sacrificed her own safety and well-being so that people could
know the truth, and hoped the revelations would spark public outcry and
lead the public to challenge the government and the U. S. military in
terms of the kind of reprehensible activity that is usually hidden under
the fog of war.
What Manning saw was a disregard for
civilians and for human life in general. Although these releases seemed
to significantly impact U. S. involvement in Iraq, this is not what
Manning was after. What she was after was an awakening of the general
public to the reality of war. In fact what Manning was doing was
bringing more evidence to the notion, popularized by former Major
General Smedley Butler, that modern ‘war’ is generally not engaged in to
defend a nation and create greater security for its citizens, but
rather serves the economic interests of a small elite group:
War is just a racket. A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to the majority of people. Only a small inside group knows what it is about. It is conducted for the benefit of the very few at the expense of the masses.–Major General Smedley Butler
Enshrined in the U.S. Army Subject
Schedule No. 27-1 is “the obligation to report all violations of the law
of war.” Manning went to her chain of command and asked them to
investigate the Collateral Murder video and other evidence of
unacceptable conduct but her superiors refused. She ultimately made the
principled decision to expose this information through Wikileaks, with
the knowledge of how much the American public was being deceived about
the true nature of the war that the U. S. Military was waging.
The Court Martial
Now if the U. S. government was sincere
in their rhetoric that they fight wars overseas in order to promote and
secure human rights and democracy around the world, then these files
published by Wikileaks would have sparked a tremendous amount of
contrition and self-reflection on their part, and Chelsea Manning would
have been hailed as a hero from the beginning for helping the U. S.
military recognize and repair obvious inconsistencies and outright
hypocrisy within their operations. None of this happened.
We celebrate the Remembrance Day holiday
to commemorate the bravery of soldiers. While there is no doubt that
many soldiers deserve regard for showing the courage to enter a war
zone, should we not awaken more to the evidence that many if not most
soldiers are simply unwittingly accomplices in highly immoral
operations? What ‘commemoration’ was given to Chelsea Manning, whose
actions, unlike those of most soldiers, are obviously of great benefit
to U. S. citizens and the human population as a whole? Of course. A
court-martial.
In her court-martial trial Chelsea
Manning admitted sending the files to WikiLeaks. She also confessed to
interacting online with someone who was probably Mr. Assange, but she
said she had acted on principle and was not working for WikiLeaks. She
was sentenced to 35 years in prison — the longest sentence by far in an
American leak case. It was obviously commensurate with the level of
embarrassment suffered by those who control military action. The initial
conditions of her confinement were egregious. She somehow managed to
survive.
President Barack Obama commuted most of
the remainder of her sentence shortly before he left office, and Manning
was released from jail on May 17th, 2017.
Refusal To Testify
When asked how the world and the U. S.
appeared to her a year after her release, Manning’s own words in the
video below indicate that things seemed to have gotten worse, and many
of her fears about the direction the world was going were manifesting:
(Watch the beginning of the full interview here if the video above does not play)
As much as she may have thought that
after this incarceration was over she would retire and ride off into the
sunset, she would end up having to make a principled stand yet again.
In May of 2019, prosecutors investigating Julian Assange and Wikileaks
subpoenaed her to testify before a grand jury about their interactions.
Believing that the case against Julian Assange was an extension of the
kind of criminality and abuse of power that she had already been
fighting against, she refused the subpoena on ethical grounds.
As the court order describes
below, Chelsea Manning chose to reject a guarantee of immunity from the
Department of Justice and was willing to once again endure prison time,
and financial ruin as well, in order to stand up to her principles:
By Order dated May 6 , 2019 [Doc. 2 ], the Court granted Chelsea Manning full use and derivative use immunity, pursuant to 18 U.S . C . 6002, and ordered Ms. Manning to testify and provide other information in the above-captioned grand jury proceeding (“Grand Jury”). Subsequently , on May 16 , 2019, after Ms. Manning stipulated that she would refuse to comply with the Court’s May 6, 2019 Order, the Court found Ms. Manning in civil contempt, determined that a coercive sanction against Ms. Manning was appropriate, and remanded Ms. Manning to the custody of the Attorney General until such time as she purges herself of contemptor for the life of the Grand Jury, but in no event longer than 18 months. [Doc. 9] In that May 16 , 2019 Order, the Court also ordered that, if Ms. Manning did not purge herself of contempt within thirty (30) days, she shall incur a conditional fine of $500 per day until such time as she purges herself of contempt; and if she did not purge herself of contempt within sixty (60) days after issuance of the Order, she shall incur a conditional fine of $ 1, 000 per day until such time as she purges herself of contempt or for the life of the grand jury, whichever occurs first.
The Grumbles Motion
In February 2020, Manning’s legal team filed what’s known as a Grumbles motion in
court, asserting that Manning has proven herself incoercible and so
must, according to legal statute, be released from her incarceration. This article in The Intercept goes into more detail:
It is a grim peculiarity of American law that a person who refuses to cooperate with a grand jury subpoena may be held in contempt of court and fined or imprisoned with the express purpose of coercing testimony, but when the coercive condition is absent, such incarceration becomes illegal. Wednesday’s motion directs Judge Anthony Trenga, who is presiding over the grand jury and Manning’s imprisonment, to accordingly recognize the illegality in this case.“The key issue before Judge Trenga is whether continued incarceration could persuade Chelsea to testify,” said Manning’s attorney, Moira Meltzer-Cohen, on filing the Grumbles motion. “Judges have complained of the ‘perversity’ of this law: that a witness may win their freedom by persisting in their contempt of court. However, should Judge Trenga agree that Chelsea will never agree to testify, he will be compelled by the law to order her release.”If the motion is successful, Manning will be freed for the very reason she has been caged: her silence. The judge can decide to recognize that Manning won’t speak as a consequence of more time in jail — or because she will continue to face unprecedented $1,000-per-day fines. Any other conclusion, after her months of steadfast and principled grand jury resistance, would fly in the face of all reason. The whistleblower’s actions and words make it plain.“I have been separated from my loved ones, deprived of sunlight, and could not even attend my mother’s funeral,” Manning said in a statement Wednesday. “It is easier to endure these hardships now than to cooperate to win back some comfort, and live the rest of my life knowing that I acted out of self-interest and not principle.”
This is what another modern hero,
whistleblower Edward Snowdon, had to say on the news that Chelsea
Manning had been released from prison:
Under these circumstances, Chelsea
Manning’s release from prison on March 12th is a victory for
humankind–if enough of us acknowledge its significance. If a ballot came
out for the greatest hero so far in the 21st century, Chelsea Manning
would get my vote.
The Takeaway
Humanity is currently in a
struggle against a small but extremely powerful group of people at the
top of the political and economic pyramid. What needs to be understood,
however, is that this group can only maintain its power if the majority
of humanity continues to bow to its bribery, threats and coercion. This
group considers humanity as mere cattle, to be pushed and swayed in
whatever direction this group wants us to go. And who can blame them for
their confidence? Who among us could say that they would have acted on
their principles under the conditions that Chelsea Manning did? How many
of us would have put our conscience to pasture and not even considered
publicizing their own military’s unconscionable behavior, or would have
chosen immunity in rationalizing that they ‘had to’ honor a Grand Jury
subpoena?
When someone endures extreme retribution
to stand up against a tyrannical authority on the basis of principle
and what is in the best interests of humanity, then that person and
their action should be celebrated in every corner of the world. Further,
their actions should serve as a model to all of us, to stand up to our
principles and values no matter the circumstances or consequences of
those actions. If more people were willing to act in this fashion, we
would have already liberated ourselves. But if the action of a brave
person like Chelsea Manning has motivated at least some of us to be more
courageous and principled when confronted with any form of tyranny or
coercion in our lives, the great moment of emancipation may soon be upon
us.
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